The Next Racing Star

By Jeff ArnoldThis was originally published and edited on ThePostGame.

The voice on the other end of the phone is filled with youthful exuberance and boundless energy. But it's also tinged ever slightly by a Southern accent that is clearly still in the development stages.

It's clear from the get-go that Alex Bowman isn't the poster boy for your father's NASCAR.

He calls Tucson, Ariz., home — a world away from Daytona where the sport annually opens its season with race-crazy fans prominently displaying flags, license plates and clothing lines. His iPod is filled with Electronic Dance Music, Macklemore and The Otherside. It's music that the Nationwide Series' newest competitor is almost certain his fellow drivers have never heard of. Away from the track, Bowman surrounds himself with a different breed of people that don't fit in with a typical NASCAR crowd.

But living outside the box of everyone around him has always suited Bowman just fine, thank you.

"I'm definitely a little different," Bowman admits. "But I always think it's good to be different, to be unique and hopefully stand out from the rest of the crowd."

At only 19, the fresh-faced Bowman is only in his third year behind the wheel of a stock car. It's a reality that immediately puts him behind the curve as he enters his first season driving full-time on NASCAR's Nationwide Series.

If Bowman's name doesn't ring a bell, don't worry. He's used to it. Bowman's gotten used to the fact that he doesn't fit the profile of an up-and-coming superstar that racing teams are lining up to get behind the wheel of one of their high-powered cars.

But in a sport attempting to turn the corner toward attracting a Twitter-crazed generation, that's precisely what made Bowman the perfect pioneer.

That's not only the case for RAB Racing and Brack Maggard, who this year has tossed the keys of its No. 99 Toyota Camry to the reigning ARCA Rookie of the Year.

But Bowman has also sold himself to Daymond John, the 43-year-old entrepreneur who founded the FUBU clothing line and now fills a seat as a resident investor in the reality series, Shark Tank, which airs Friday nights on ABC.

For John, banking on NASCAR makes sense as a solid investment for his Shark Branding firm. But taking a chance on an out-of-the-box driver like Bowman is also good business, John insists, as a way of expanding stock car racing's appeal to a non-traditional audience.

"I find many, many things (about NASCAR) attractive," John says in a phone interview with ThePostGame. "I just needed to find the right way to be aligned with it in a way that made sense."

Enter Alex Bowman.

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When Bowman announced to his friends back at Tucson's Ironwood Ridge High School that he had plans to make it big in NASCAR, the response was fairly predictable.

The West Coast isn't exactly a breeding ground for teenagers harboring hopes of making it a go of it at breakneck speed. On the surface, Bowman seemed so normal, so laid back.

But then he broke the news to his buddies.

"You almost get laughed at in high school," Bowman says. "It's kind of like, ‘Whatever.'"

Whatever indeed.

Bowman started racing short tracks in Arizona and California as a kid before shifting into stock cars when he was 17. In 2010, he survived a serious Midget car dirt track wreck when his car flipped 15 times. He sustained broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a punctured lung.

Five weeks later, he was back in the car.

But the accident that may have scared most novices out of getting behind the wheel again only prompted Bowman to hit the pedal on his racing career.

In his first full-time season on the ARCA series last year, Bowman became the first driver to win his first two career starts. He captured four checkered flags and 11 Top 5 finishes in a year when he led ARCA with the most laps led (554) and pole positions (six).

"It's probably the most fun I've ever had in a race car," Bowman says.